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This is a beginners question so please take it as such. I come from an Iwama based Dojo. Sensei always talks about three level of Aikido. Kihon or static, Ki-no-nagare or flowing and Ki or Takemusa (and this may be a bastardization of what he is explaining). We practice all three levels but it is expressed that Kihon is the basic or base of the technique where we learn what a technique is and how it is performed.

My question is should one resist a technique while practicing Kihon? Also should we be altering the attack to meet the ukes energy/attack?

It seems this would defeat the purpose of learning the mechanics and fundamentals of the technique. At this point it seems collusion between Uke and Nage is part of the learning process both in learning the proper ukemi and the proper attack.

We often give verbal cues if a technique is performed incorrectly, especially after repeatedly making the same error. You'll often hear statements like, "you didn't really get my balance there." Or "you left yourself open there." You will on occasion find a point where your technique stalls because your not finding the right angle or your going into a persons power but I wouldn't call it resistance to a technique. As a beginner I'm reluctant to ever resist a technique because what I perceive as a point where the technique is failing is often a failing in my ukemi not the a fault on my partners technique. Typically, I have lost connection not the other way around.

Hi,
This is how we are taught.
In training you should grip tight enough so that nage struggles to do the technique, then you should let off a bit so they can do it. Over time the technique improves bit by bit and the grip can get stronger and stronger. This is the Iwama Ryu way of doing things.
Uke gets stronger, nage's technique improves.

You did the right thing to not deviate to a different technique. The uke should, in my opinion, let off the tension a bit and let you do the technique to the level you are capable of. This is how you improve.

In future, maybe ask them to hold a little easier? So you can actually do the technique.

Hi,
This is how we are taught.
In training you should grip tight enough so that nage struggles to do the technique, then you should let off a bit so they can do it. Over time the technique improves bit by bit and the grip can get stronger and stronger. This is the Iwama Ryu way of doing things.
Uke gets stronger, nage's technique improves.

You did the right thing to not deviate to a different technique. The uke should, in my opinion, let off the tension a bit and let you do the technique to the level you are capable of. This is how you improve.

In future, maybe ask them to hold a little easier? So you can actually do the technique.

Hi,
This is how we are taught.
In training you should grip tight enough so that nage struggles to do the technique, then you should let off a bit so they can do it. Over time the technique improves bit by bit and the grip can get stronger and stronger. This is the Iwama Ryu way of doing things.
Uke gets stronger, nage's technique improves.

You did the right thing to not deviate to a different technique. The uke should, in my opinion, let off the tension a bit and let you do the technique to the level you are capable of. This is how you improve.

In future, maybe ask them to hold a little easier? So you can actually do the technique.

What is that grab supposed to be? If the intention is to train a good martial artist, then teaching people to do that ridiculous "grab of death" is silly. The first thing any martial artist from another style will say when he sees Aikido is that no one attacks that way. And it is true, no one outside of Aikido attacks that way.

Who ever won a fight by keeping the other guy from moving? You win a fight by breaking his balance, putting him in a position in which he cannot defend himself, and striking him. Not only does grabbing hard focus all the power on the wrist rather than the center, the tension involved curtails the freedom of movement of the attacker as well as the defender. This is not intelligent martial arts. Try taking someone's balance using strength. I am a 250 pound guy. If I grab someone my own size there is no way I can take his center if I tense up my arms when I grab.

On the other hand, I can have a person off balance and struck two or three times if I keep my arms relaxed and don't think this has anything to do with stopping someone else's movement. Since Aikido is being presented as some sort of extension of pub crawling or defense against foot ball hooligans, I'll say that in any kind of "applied" situation, I can't think of a less applicable skill than grabbing someone so hard their hand turns purple. Absolutely no function.

With my students, we start with katatetori and have the nage throw a punch with the off-hand. Or a kick... The uke should be able to use the grabbing hand to "solve" that problem. Try doing that while squeezing hard. Then we teach the uke to grab, use the grab to break nage's balance, and strike him. The instant you grab some the way you are talking about, you are totally open and cannot defend.

It is simply a fact that tension slows you down, reduces your power, and restricts your freedom. This is one of the reasons that serious folks from other martial arts think Aikido is bullshit. They look at this grab the wrist stuff and see what a joke it is. You'll hear that these grabs were originally about stopping someone from accessing his weapon, usually sword. But actually, it wasn't about stopping him from pulling his sword, it was about using the grab to break his balance and take the sword away from him and cutting him with it. That is entirely a different matter.

Now there are folks who have done a lot of IP work that can grab you in a completely relaxed manner and you'll have a hard time moving. That's different as they are using their structure for that strength and not doing anything which restricts their freedom of movement or makes it hard to defend themselves. But this entails an understanding of how to direct power to the nage's center and has nothing to do with holding the wrist hard. I can seriously restrict someone's ability to move while my arms are relaxed and my grip is only slightly tight, pretty much as you'd hold a sword. But, outside of kihon waza training in which the point is feedback for the nage, I would not see restricting the opponent's movement as having much utility at all. Do that and it's like grabbing an anchor... who actually has who? I render you unable to move using muscle strength and I am just as unable to move until I release you.

Everyone seems to basically agree that sword and empty hand are related. well, tell me when you would ever use the kind of strength and tension with sword? Pretty much never. So we shouldn't be imprinting that kind of mistaken tension through our training. You want to see what grabbing properly should look like, take a look at the YouTube clips of Judo's Mifune. That's grabbing.

Ok Demetrio, I have no idea how you would accomplish that without tensing up your arm. Maybe you have a secret I do not.

However, I will say that everyone I have ever trained with, which is of course limited to my own personal experience but includes folks from all sorts of Aikido stylistic backgrounds, who crushed my wrists, was tense and was limiting his own freedom of movement in trying to limit mine. If we ever get together you can show me how you'd do it without tension.

My general rule of thumb is that the place at which you feel the power is the place at which they are putting their energy and their attention. When I grab someone I want them to feel like I grabbed their center and I do not want them feeling much at the wrist. It is a waste of energy and has no function.

I get it about the Grip of Death being something that might help a beginner develop some hand strength and some basic ideas of seizing nage.

But after a very short period of that, I worry that the GoD gives nage bad habits, since on the mat they can take for granted that uke is going to hold on no matter what kind of crappy connection they have.

And if you are going to practice the GoD, I really don't think you are doing yourself any good by putting it on, then relaxing. Anybody can squeeze as hard as they can for a couple of seconds. After that, your grip burns out. If you decide that grip strength is a goal of your training you should practice hanging on for awhile.

Ok Demetrio, I have no idea how you would accomplish that without tensing up your arm. Maybe you have a secret I do not.

Metalworking, using a grinder. You have to control a crazy thing that can kill you while keeping movility in your wrist. If an ankward posture has to be held the better. Is not a secret, is only practise.

Quote:

However, I will say that everyone I have ever trained with, which is of course limited to my own personal experience but includes folks from all sorts of Aikido stylistic backgrounds, who crushed my wrists, was tense and was limiting his own freedom of movement in trying to limit mine.

I totally believe you.

Quote:

If we ever get together you can show me how you'd do it without tension

Or I am shown the error of my ways. It will be a win/win situation for sure.

Quote:

My general rule of thumb is that the place at which you feel the power is the place at which they are putting their energy and their attention. When I grab someone I want them to feel like I grabbed their center and I do not want them feeling much at the wrist. It is a waste of energy and has no function

I don't have any problem with your approach, but reading accounts of O Sensei crushing grip by his deshi I suspect there is more than the feeling of center taking in founder's aiki.

Metalworking, using a grinder.
I don't have any problem with your approach, but reading accounts of O Sensei crushing grip by his deshi I suspect there is more than the feeling of center taking in founder's aiki.

There is no question that O-Sensei was strong on a ridiculous level. He was conditioned on an internal level and was just plain crazy strong on a muscular level. Doing something like the famous "jo trick" would take both. One certainly wouldn't want Dan H to get hold of you either... But Dan can do it without losing any freedom of movement, not does he create any off balance in his structure. This is completely unlike what most folks are doing when they grab in Aikido. And, as I said, power put into the wrist, or any other point of contact, may be irritating but has little or no actual function in a martial encounter unless we are talking about strikes, and even then it's a lot more complex than that.

It is simply a fact that tension slows you down, reduces your power, and restricts your freedom. This is one of the reasons that serious folks from other martial arts think Aikido is bullshit. They look at this grab the wrist stuff and see what a joke it is.

I have never met a serious - as in high ranking - martial artist who didn't respect aikido.

we can make our minds so like still water, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life
w b yeats

George perhaps, with utmost respect I think you are missing my point, or at least misinterpreting my words, and in essence I agree with your comments.

(I think we need to careful here, I am talking about static kihon techniques, not ki no nagare, that's has a slightly different story)

The intention of Uke is not to grab such that his/her whole body tenses and becomes stiff and rigid; and I concur the 'grip' should be directed towards nage's center (One point). You can hold a tight grip without tensing you legs, or your pelvic floor for instance. The face, the eyes will tell you everything about where the tension is being held.

When a 'beginner' is grabbed hard they usually focus on the power of the hold and hence they have a tendency to tense up themselves, and struggle to find a way out. This makes the technique hard, if not impossible to do. (This was the point I believed you made in one of your replies)

So nage is learning to move around the power of uke. The stronger the grip the better the lesson in moving around that power. Then no matter how hard (or even tense) uke becomes, nage has learnt to let go, relax, and developed a sensitivity to feel the freedom of movement that they do inevitably have, in one direction or another.

But it needs to be done progressively so that over time nage learns to 'let go' more and more, and realizes that no matter how hard or tight they are grabbed they are not trapped and there is a way out. (This for me applies to Aikido in verbal assaults too, but that's a separate thread entirely)

To quote Saito Sensei: "If you cant move when you are grabbed it isn't martial arts". The bully on the street isn't trained in how to grab nicely, they may tense up but most likely they will just hold as tight as they can to try to restrict your movements.

George perhaps, with utmost respect I think you are missing my point, or at least misinterpreting my words, and in essence I agree with your comments.

(I think we need to careful here, I am talking about static kihon techniques, not ki no nagare, that's has a slightly different story)

The intention of Uke is not to grab such that his/her whole body tenses and becomes stiff and rigid; and I concur the 'grip' should be directed towards nage's center (One point). You can hold a tight grip without tensing you legs, or your pelvic floor for instance. The face, the eyes will tell you everything about where the tension is being held.

When a 'beginner' is grabbed hard they usually focus on the power of the hold and hence they have a tendency to tense up themselves, and struggle to find a way out. This makes the technique hard, if not impossible to do. (This was the point I believed you made in one of your replies)

So nage is learning to move around the power of uke. The stronger the grip the better the lesson in moving around that power. Then no matter how hard (or even tense) uke becomes, nage has learnt to let go, relax, and developed a sensitivity to feel the freedom of movement that they do inevitably have, in one direction or another.

But it needs to be done progressively so that over time nage learns to 'let go' more and more, and realizes that no matter how hard or tight they are grabbed they are not trapped and there is a way out. (This for me applies to Aikido in verbal assaults too, but that's a separate thread entirely)

To quote Saito Sensei: "If you cant move when you are grabbed it isn't martial arts". The bully on the street isn't trained in how to grab nicely, they may tense up but most likely they will just hold as tight as they can to try to restrict your movements.

(This is obviously just one way of learning Aikido)
Keith

My greatest objection to the way Aikido is generally done, and it's the way I did it for years, is that the nage is attempting to do technique with total relaxation, using very sophisticated principles, against an uke that attacks like he is mentally deficient.

50% of your training is done as uke. If what you are doing in that role is different than what you are doing as nage, your body just gets confused.

There should be no difference between how you deliver a grab and how you grab someone. For many folks, it is almost the opposite as uke from what they do as nage. For many, they are indeed the same, but only in the sense that they are too tight and muscling in both roles.

I am not saying that, once you know what you are doing, that you can't move if someone is stupid enough to try to restrain your movement. I am saying that, in the hierarchy of likely situations in any martial encounter, being grabbed with the intention of holding you in place is just about the least likely. Holding someone and not letting them move will not set up a throw, will generally not create an opening for a strike, and has no function. Teaching Aikido people that this is a way to attack is doing them a disservice. Teaching them to grab i a way that can break the partner's balance at the moment of the touch is a primary and valuable skill for any martial artist and requires that nage actually be more sophisticated in his technique to avoid having his center taken.

To quote Saito Sensei: "If you cant move when you are grabbed it isn't martial arts". The bully on the street isn't trained in how to grab nicely, they may tense up but most likely they will just hold as tight as they can to try to restrict your movements.

Let's consider that bully on the street in a little more detail... What is he actually trying to do? Push you over, maybe? Shove you against a wall and punch you? Yank you into a head butt or a kick? Keep you from escaping while he hits you?

All of these are possibilities, but I can guarantee that his primary objective is *not* to turn your hand purple. Whether he uses fancy Japanese words to describe what he's doing or not, his target is your center, or at least some soft punchable spot along your center line.

My greatest objection to the way Aikido is generally done, and it's the way I did it for years, is that the nage is attempting to do technique with total relaxation, using very sophisticated principles, against an uke that attacks like he is mentally deficient.

I absolutely agree, but I fear from a completely different perspective. A vast number of Aikidoka jump straight into flowing ki-no-nagare techniques without the faintest idea what it feels like to actually be grabbed like the person means it. So when they are grabbed, even vaguely hard they have nothing, except as you say a sharp atemi to the face or groin. Same as nikkyo, weak uke means weak nage and rubbish nikkyo. Many Aikidoka can't actually put on a strong nikkyo because uke drops to their knees at the first ounce of pain. First go slow, get technically better and stronger at the same time. The fluid stuff can come later.

Atemi is 70% of applied technique, what is harder to master is getting around the power without the need to smack people.

I maintain learning solid technique, ability to relax and sensitivity is helped by a good strong (and flexible) uke.

"There are many paths to the top of mount fujiyama, but there is only one summit"

but I can guarantee that his primary objective is *not* to turn your hand purple

Naturally I agree, but the principles learned through somebody grabbing your hand hard and grabbing your hair hard, or your arms hard or whatever are the same. Otherwise why practice katate-dori at all, it wouldn't make sense.

You should be able to move whatever the hold or attack, or even better before you are grabbed or struck. The principle still applies before the event as it does once you are grabbed, tense up and you wont be able to move, remain calm, focused and relaxed and you will see that they don't really have you at all.

Naturally I agree, but the principles learned through somebody grabbing your hand hard and grabbing your hair hard, or your arms hard or whatever are the same. Otherwise why practice katate-dori at all, it wouldn't make sense.

You should be able to move whatever the hold or attack, or even better before you are grabbed or struck. The principle still applies before the event as it does once you are grabbed, tense up and you wont be able to move, remain calm, focused and relaxed and you will see that they don't really have you at all.

Oh, I totally agree. I just think "hard grab" as usually taught in aikido dojos doesn't have much resemblance to "hard grab" as usually encountered out in the real world. The Bad Guy on The Street (tm) may not know anything about aiki, but he probably does have some martial goal. Too many aikidoka don't seem to.

Hi- I'm sorry if this has been discussed to death...but I have a question and situation I am curious to hear your ideas about.

Um...In Aikido...what is the difference between someone resisting energy and you doing a poor technique?

I worked with a guy doing Shihonage the other day and I could only move him slightly before I felt a lot of resistance----"I was like man my technique is not good"----but my instincts were like "I ain't gonna fight this guy" so I moved him as far as I could and then changed sides.

I wasn't frustrated, just curious- the guy says "You want me to stop resisting? I find it helps me learn when people resist, but I can stop." I said, no, you just do what you want to. Its cool.

When I felt the resistance I noticed other techniques that were opening up...but it wasn't what the teacher showed so I just kept failing at Shihonage.

What do you guys think? Should your techniques work even when someone gets super rigid and muscled up?

Let me start by saying that what I believe most aikido people do as katatetori is probably a poor attempt at what used to be the precursor to a strike directed to seize control over your opponent. I believe that the goal of katatedori is to achieve kuzushi; that is take balance and center. In grabbing your hand I am symbolically and and physically seizing your center. In my uke training I should first require of nage to take back her center or, if you're nage is good, never achieve kuzushi. For example, a good judo player can grab your lapel and dump you on your head before you can blink. This is kuzushi.

Next, I believe that most aikido people do not have a clue what to do after seizing nage's hand, even if they may achieve kuzushi. We are not competent in concluding our technique even if given the opportunity. The result of this situation if often inappropriate, if not dangerous, response to nage.

All that being said, yes, within a bell-curve of physicality good kihon waza may be succesffully applied to uke regardless of uke's response. The mechanics of kihon waza provide nage with a mechanical advantage over uke; the mechanical advantage often makes the engagement more dangerous if uke decides to resist. Think of playing tug of war but one side gets a pulley and anchor... However, it is not always the case that technique you are trying to apply is the technique that you may successfully apply. I think this situation has already been covered, but it is confusing for beginners who believe unsuccessful application of technique means failure; more probably, it was the improper technique applied to uke.

"Resisting energy" once referred to the polite chastizing of poor martial strategy and application in engaging your opponent. It was better than saying, "Idiot, don't give me you back. You're cutesy turn out of my ikyyo is going result in koppo." It reminds students that martial techniques and engagement has an ebb and flow of energy that can be used to one's advantage. Unfortunately, I think the term is now mostly an excuse for nage's poor technique and uke's lack of martial competence.

It is the role of sensei (or sempai) to step in during these confusing egagements and provide clear instruction to each partner as to how to understand their roles.

There were a number of things I didn't quite get in your previous posts regarding Keith's training method. I wonder if Mike Sigman's response to this link I posted a while back might give a better view of what I believe Keith was describing:

That's an excellent article, Carl. It's basically about the development from normal strength to ki/kokyu skills and going from static to moving techniques.

There is an interesting implication that a student is expected to go from resistance and muscle toward using correct strength (kokyu ryoku) and then developing technique and correct-strength toward using no-strength (that's a very classical statement). What's interesting about the stated ideas in that article is that a person more or less has to find his own way out of the muscle-puzzle. Too many people never do, so they wind up adjusting their use of muscle to techniques... and that's the common scenario in Aikido (and a number of other arts).

The power of the ki/kokyu skills is very much tied to the power that an Uke/opponent puts out in an attack. There is an old, old saying that essentially says "I cannot beat a wooden man or a brass man, but if he is human I can beat him". The essential idea is that using ki/kokyu skills I can blend with the various generated forces of an opponent, blend my forces with his forces and the combination will defeat the opponent. Since a wooden man and a brass man generate no forces, my ki/kokyu forces offer no real advantage.

Reading of an opponent's forces becomes critical. It goes beyond having a response up your sleeve that is an omote shiho-nage to a shomenuchi. You have to be able to see or feel the actual direction of general-movement force in the opponent and adjust your own internal forces in such a way the the attacking force is neutralized or, better yet, used to initiate the throw/technique that actually defeats Uke.

The body can be trained to instantly analyse and react to an incoming force, even if the force comes from behind. Tohei's "ki tricks" are actually basic training for always being in balance and letting the body "adjust" to any incoming force. At first in your training you just "ground" incoming forces... hence all the "immoveable" aspects of most "ki tests". But the Iwama comments imply the same things that Tohei's ki-tests do. Iwama just uses a different approach to the same core goals.

And of course doing some manipulations to affect Uke's forces before they actually reach Nage is a valid corollary of legitimate Aikido (and many other arts).

I often read old translations about various famous sword duels in the past and it's easy to see how much attention was paid to not giving away your general force directions, controlling the opponent's "ki" by generating your own force/kokyu/ki intentions in certain areas, and so on. "No touch" and "ki throws" are meant to be in these legitimate categories, but once you understand the idea it's pretty easy to spot the people who are making a parody of the legitimate skill, and so on.

FWIW

Mike Sigman

I agree with Mike's warning here that without proper instruction people can get lost in the muscle-puzzle but essentially, this is a way of purging strength and tension in favour of kokyu-power.

Zach, what you may have is an uke who prepares for your technique, that is, knows that we are about to practice shihonage (for example) and so gets himself set to resist a shihonage. Ledyard Sensei has an article about this somewhere.

I have a training partner like this, who analyses the technique he knows is coming and figures out how to thwart it before starting his attack. He thinks he is being realistic by providing a committed attack and resistance to the technique, but in truth he is training us both for a situation in which the attacker can read the defender's mind, obviously not a reaslistic situation.

Besides that, when he prepares to fight that one technique, he leaves himself completely defenseless against all manner of other techniques. I am not yet skilled enough to effectively move from one technique into another that smoothly yet, and so he often congratulates himself for having "beaten" me. In reality, he has just deprived both of us of an opportunity to learn.

I have a training partner like this, who analyses the technique he knows is coming and figures out how to thwart it before starting his attack. He thinks he is being realistic by providing a committed attack and resistance to the technique, but in truth he is training us both for a situation in which the attacker can read the defender's mind, obviously not a reaslistic situation.

I assume this person is your sempai. Often from my own experience when this is the case I have found that the best thing to do is to copy exactly how they do the technique. It is not that they are necessarily trying to stop you from doing the technique, but that they have a preconceived notion of how they think it should be done. By coping them it will placate them and they wont resist you doing the technique the way they believe it should be done, otherwise they are completely hypocritical and ridiculous. You also learn a slightly different way of getting around power, and learn a new way to do the technique, all valuable stuff.